There are emails from Amazon executive Laura Porco to various publishers. I don't know the contents because Amazon redacted them and the Judge won't permit them as evidence since Amazon is not a defendant. Perhaps, at trial we'll know more.

I agree it doesn't matter since Amazon is not a party to the DOJ action.

Amazon benefited greatly from Apple's system whether they realized it at the time or not.

The Agency system is not at issue. Price fixing is.
Amazon's actions actions are not at issue, Apple's are.

Gee, how wise of him to focus the trial on the parties involved in the suit.
Is "well, someone else may have thought about this before" a valid defense now?

In related news, in the murder trial of John Smith, the defense has brought evidence that a childhood friend of Smith's once got angry at a waiter, and sent his steak back at a Outback Steak House. In spite of this revelation, the judge has said neither government of Australia, nor the steak will be the focus of the trial.

It is always useful to throw up a straw-man in order to distract from your problems.

ex.
Lawyer:
"Well, yes there are 4 witnesses that say Joe raped the alleged drunk victim in the back alley when the victim was staggering home, but it should be noted that many men bought the victim alcohol and many others made sexual commentary about the victim and in particular a priest, an out of work school bus drive and an off duty cop gave the victim really lascivious looks."
"Why are you only picking on my poor client?"

An agency system in and of itself isn't the problem. It's already been ruled that such a system wouldn't be illegal. It's the collusion part that the trial is about.

Exactly.
The trial is about what was actually done, not what was discussed.

It should be noted that Random House was not charged even though they were a party to the collusion discussions.
They knew the others were colluding (and were even expected to join in, right up to iPad launch day) and at the last moment they decided (correctly) that joining in from day one would not be in their best interests.
They discussed an agency deal but did nothing illegal.
(And, as a matter of fact, by staying *out* of the conspiracy, they did gangbuster business for several months, which is why Apple and Penguin leaned on them to join the conspiracy..."or else".)

Similarly, whatever Amazon may or not have discussed in negotiations with the BPHs did not result in any action, did not result in any price hike, did not break antitrust.

Similarly, whatever Amazon may or not have discussed in negotiations with the BPHs did not result in any action, did not result in any price hike, did not break antitrust.

But, if true, it does answer a few questions I had.

One ... what was the "sensitive" information that Amazon fought rather strongly not to be revealed and that the publishers knew about. Amazon already released their financials.

Two ... what was Amazon's proposal that the publishers disliked so much that they jumped aboard Apple's even at risk of lawsuit.

Again, I don't care what happens to Apple. On a personal level the outcome won't mean anything to me. I didn't purchase Agency titles before and I don't purchase after as they are still not discounted.

If Amazon were in talks about agency pricing, all they likely* needed to do to stay in the clear would probably be to not mention to any publisher that they're even in talks with any other publisher about pricing/contracts.

The snippets of emails that have been released as part of the Apple investigation, show a different situation between Apple and the publishers.

Whatever Amazon redacted, the feds saw and did nothing.
Me, I don't particularly care what they offered up since it wasn't acted upon but if I absolutely had to speculate, I suspect they offered up a 70-30 split baselined at $9.99 (max).
That is pretty much what they offer to indie publishers.

[...] After Random House finally agreed to a contract on Jan. 18, 2011, Eddy Cue, the Apple executive in charge of its e-books deals, sent an e-mail to Mr. Jobs attributing the publisher’s capitulation, in part, to “the fact that I prevented an app from Random House from going live in the app store,” the filing reads. [...]

So that's where Sargent got the idea!

I know that this thread mostly deals with the price-fixing thing, but the quote above also shows you how evil the whole concept of a centralized app store is. That is a clear example of Apple blocking someone's app for no good reason (I wonder if this violates their own app publishing license agreement?).

I know that this thread mostly deals with the price-fixing thing, but the quote above also shows you how evil the whole concept of a centralized app store is. That is a clear example of Apple blocking someone's app for no good reason (I wonder if this violates their own app publishing license agreement?).

Apple had better be careful with that App store because using Appstore access as a tool to force people to deal with other parts of their business is very close to the classic "tying" antitrust behavior.
So far its just a sleazy negotiating tactic with would be partners but if they try it on anybody who might be legally-speaking a consumer, they'd be in a world of trouble.

It is also close to classic racketeering but since close only counts in horsehoes and hand grenades they only have to deal with collusion charges, so far.

They really shouldn't be pushing their luck right now; unless the DOJ settlement requires them to divest the iBooks operation (not impossible) they really need to settle his before more of their dirty deeds get out in the open. Once those things come out in federal court they become fair game for civil trials. And deep pockets attract ambulance chaser like roadkill attracts flies.

Not quite sure what Apple's tax avoidance has to do with DOJ's case against them.

You mean of course the DOJ's antitrust case.
I agree the remark I made doesn't address that directly.

However it does show Apple's great efforts legal (or not so legal) to protect itself, and to enrich itself.

Granted "everyone does it" but Apple seems to really hammer the nails it strikes very hard in all areas. Sometimes it seems they would have been better served to use a "nail setter" so as not to damage the surrounding surfaces and finishes.

All this points out an arrogance at Apple that states that they feel that they are above the law, above sensible propriety.